Knowle West Boy

KNOWLE WEST BOY, named after the Bristol neighbourhood he grew up in,
is Tricky's latest albums and it comes at a time where I have nearly
lost all faith in him. None of the albums that came out after ANGEL
WITH DIRTY FACES has succeeded to maake me happy. VULNERABLE got a
step close but wasn't enough.
I'm afraid to say KWB had the same effect. It's full of different
styles and reminds us of his different periods and it lacks a certain
constance in quality.
During the few first songs, I got really excited and then the joy
faded after a few tracks...
There are songs that I really dislike like "Council Estate" and "C'Mon
Baby", and they really could belong to the BLOWBACK period.
There are also some boring fillers like "Slow".
Then, there are also some good songs like PUPPY TOY, which remind us
of ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES.
But that's maybe the main problem of that album, it "reminds" us of
the past.
Sometimes it even feels like he's trying to recreate a feeling of the
past, "Coalition" or "Past Mistake" but it somehow lacks power in
convincing and comes out a little too clean in the mix. Like a
mimicking of himself.
Different faces of Tricky, but where is he really at now?
The cover of the album shows him naked and wearing a mask. So Tricky
is the sum of all of that...Maybe that is after all a very honest record

PS:
We got various vocalists, both male (a very touching ragga flow in
the beginning of the song "Bacative") and female but they are
strangely not even attached to their respective songs in the credits.
The CD booklet is just mentioning the production and then, "CREDITS
TO: . ..". It's an original way of crediting artists, but it may not
pay them much tribute since we don't know who performs on what.
Oh, and if you're wondering if the booklet is worth buying in store
rather than downloading, forget it. There's absolutely nothing worth
of mentoning in the booklet. Except if having two squares of yellow
paper sounds exciting to you.

The blue God

Tiime for a review of the last two albums I bought : Martina Topley Bird's "THE BLUE GOD" and Tricky's "KNOWLE WEST BOY".
Anyone that knows me will immediately see how these 2 release might be of importance to me.
Well, it is only partly so.
I am a huge admirer of the "Tricky with Martina" era, from MAXINQUAYE to ANGEL WITH DIRTY FACES, all records were brilliant albums shining dark geniousness all over.
Then Tricky went his way and I can't say I've ever been really satisfied of what was issued after that. Martina went solo and she launched the new hope on her debut album "Quixotic".
To be honest, I liked Quixotic but thought it a little irritating, maybe too clean? It's hard to explain, it kind of lacked guts or inspiration. Tricky had added some production to a few songs but nothing was really "up there" anyway.
Having been disapointed with Tricky so many times and not having been very enthusiastic at the results of Martina's Quixotic, I was even wondering if I would buy their respective latest albums.
Well, as you probably guessed, I did.

First I'll go with some good news:
Martina's "The Blue God" is a great album!
Not great as ground breaking and revolutionnary but great as : it' s a hell of pleasure to listen to.
Produced by Danger Mouse, it's pretty neat and melts various elements from all kind of musical styles. The voice is superb and she sure feels happy to sing...
There is a contaminous groove all over and you'll soon find yourself dancing all over the house, legs shaking, hip bouncing and head and shoulders surfing in a hawaian move over all the great beats of this album.
There is also a modern film noir atmosphere that sticks to the artwork and really makes you want to order another whisky even if giving away those few last coins means you can't afford coming home.
The cabaret is filled with coloured smoke and Martina is singing. She's shining.
Songs like "Carnies" and " Baby Blue" make you wonder if Tarantino is DJing in your living room and you may even end up scanning the credits to check for his name. Don't bother, he's not there.
I won't go into a song by song review but they sure go well together, they have a real harmony and the album flows smoothly and brings some flowers into your headphones. Some songs may seem a little short and end a tad bit abruptly but they are all just rich enough to provide you with ample pleasure and let you go through time on those multi generational melodies.
So, that's a big thank you to Martina, Musical happiness is rare those days and I am really happy with that buy. Martina is back and she's here to stay!!

Martina Topley-Bird : THE BLUE GOD, Independiente Records, 2008.

Tricky's KNOWLE WEST BOY review will be up soon.

Nouveau départ (Nouveau déguisement)

(English version at bottom)

Bonjour à tous!
Et bah, ça fait bien longtemps que j'ai pas alimenté le blog...
Désolé pour ça.
En fait il s'est passé pas mal de choses, même si rien de très héroïque ni dépaysant mais des choses bien importantes quand même.
Donc ceci est juste un petit message pour vous mettre au courant.

1) La numéro un des news, qui est de taille, c'est que j'ai finalement retrouvé un emploi!!

Oui, là c'est ni de la plonge ni du remplacement, c'est un vrai CDI de...prof d'anglais.
Bah oui, je reviens à mes origines universitaires... Donc c'est pas vraiment le milieu du film ou de la création, mais ça reste en rapport avec les langues et ça nous permettra de respirer et de sortir de ce long trou noir économique qu'a été cette année.
Donc voilà, je commence ce lundi!
Bon, après y' a 2 mois de période d'essai donc rien n'est garanti...mais on croise les doigts.
Par contre, c'est à 1 heure de train de chez nous...

2) On déménage!!
Yop, ça y'est, on quitte notre petit T1bis de 30m2 pour rejoindre un T2 de 52m2 avec une vraie cuisine séparée...On déménage demain avec l'aide de mon papa et d'un copain photographe, Ben.
Ça risque de pas être bien facile mais après l'effort viendra le réconfort. J'espère!
Voilà, c'est tout pour aujourd'hui.

En guise de good-bye à notre premier appart rennais, je mets en ligne les photos que j'en avais prise pour mettre une annonce:







Pour souvenir et vous imaginer le dur contraste qu'on a pris dans la figure en revenant de Chine, je vous invite à revoir d'où on vient.
- - -
Hello everybody!
Well, sorry for the lack of news but we've been a little busy and at least there are some important news.
1) I've finally found a new job.
I'll be teaching english in a school specialized in logistics in a city that's about an hour from here by train.
That means I'll finally have a steady paycheck and I will have something cooler to answer when people ask me what I do for living. Ok, it ain't the coolest thing to answer you're en english teacher when you're secretly a hugely misunderstood artist, but that does sound better than the "I'm unemployed at the moment" sentence I got used to.
2) We're moving out!
Yep, we're done with that 30m2 flat we had for the whole year (see photos above), and we're now moving to a 50m2 flat, with an individual kitchen.
That's still half the size of the flat we had in China but ... we're not in China anymore.
Ok, since we're moving, we won't have internet for quite a while but please keep checking in regularly!

See y'all!! And please post some comments!